Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 2026

1. Controller

Torsten Silovsky
Stollberger Straße 64, 09119 Chemnitz, Germany
Email: info@hoong.de · Phone: +49 (0)3721 27 05 20

2. Purpose

This website provides real-time visualizations of lightning detections and sensor network data. No user registration, analytics, or advertising tracking is used.

3. Data from sensor devices (network participants)

Lightning events (“strikes”): timestamps, distance estimates, and the reporting device's GPS position.
Heartbeat telemetry: device status such as temperature, humidity, signal strength (RSSI), uptime, firmware version, and—if available—GPS coordinates.
Device metadata: a technical device identifier and the device's IP address, which is anonymized before storage (last octet removed).

Device GPS positions typically correspond to the location where a participant operates their sensor (e.g., their home) and are therefore treated as personal data of the participant. Publicly visible map data only contain coordinates coarsened to a grid of roughly 1 km; precise positions are not published. Device identifiers are technical IDs without names or contact data.

4. Legal basis

Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interests). The legitimate interest is the operation and improvement of a community lightning detection network. Participants connect their devices voluntarily and can stop transmission at any time by disconnecting their device.

5. Map tiles (Mapbox) — consent-based, third-country transfer

The interactive map loads tile images from Mapbox Inc., 740 15th Street NW, Washington DC, USA. No request is sent to Mapbox until you actively click “Show map” (two-click solution). Only after your consent are map tiles loaded; at that point your IP address and technical request data are transmitted to Mapbox in the United States.

Legal basis: your consent, Article 6(1)(a) GDPR. Transfer safeguard: EU standard contractual clauses / EU-US Data Privacy Framework (see Mapbox Privacy Policy).

If you tick “Remember my choice”, your consent is stored in your browser's local storage on your device only. You can withdraw your consent at any time via the “Reset map consent” link in the page footer or by clearing your browser's site data; map tiles will then only load again after a new consent. All other scripts and styles are hosted on our own server; no other third-party requests are made.

6. Browser location (optional)

After you enable the map, your browser may ask for permission to use your location. If you allow it, your position is used only locally in your browser to center the map. It is never transmitted to our server or stored. If you decline, a default map view is shown.

7. Server logs

When accessing the site, the hosting provider (IONOS SE, Montabaur, Germany) processes technical logs (e.g., IP address, timestamp, user agent) for security and troubleshooting. Logs are automatically purged after a short retention period.

8. Cookies & local storage

No analytics, advertising, or social tracking. We use the browser's local storage solely to remember your UI preferences (time range, refresh interval), the dismissal of the data notice, and — if you chose so — your map consent (section 5). No profiling is performed and this data never leaves your browser.

9. Sharing

Apart from hosting by IONOS and the map tile delivery by Mapbox described above, data are not shared with third parties unless required by law.

10. Retention

Coarsened, published lightning datasets may be retained for research and statistics. Device telemetry is retained as long as the device participates in the network; participants can request deletion of their device's data at any time.

11. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, and data portability regarding personal data (e.g., your device's telemetry). Contact us at info@hoong.de. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority; the authority competent for us is the Saxon Data Protection Commissioner (Sächsische Datenschutz- und Transparenzbeauftragte, datenschutz.sachsen.de).

12. Updates

This notice may be updated to reflect legal or functional changes.